Rhyme Time

Hi all!  I've been doing some cool rhyming songs for my classroom and wanted to share what I'm doing with all of you.

When I was a little girl, I loved doing Patty-Cake-style songs.  I did them at school.  I did them at home.  I did them in the car.  I just love them!  Dr. Jean has a very awesome version of "Miss Mary Mack" on her CD Totally Reading.  The neat thing about this song is, beside the fact that your children are learning how to rhyme, they're also crossing the mid-line (which is great for building synapses in the brain) and they're learning how to cooperate.  There's a song by Raffi called "Willoughby Wallaby Woo" which is basically a name rhyme song that I did a lot at the beginning of the school year.  I thought about it, and figured why not do it in April?  The kids went nuts for it and were singing "Willoughby Wallby Wennifer, an elephant sat on Jennifer," substituting all their names, when they were at centers.  Talk about magical!  I love hearing them sing when they're at centers.  Another song that I do a couple times a week is "Make a Rhyme, Make a Move" by Jack Hartmann, where the students are singing and dancing.  It's on the CD Hip-Hop Alphabop 2.  I've seen Jack Hartmann do this at conferences and he mixes it with a little rap flair.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned how much teaching stuff I have.  I've been teaching for over 20 years, so I have over 4 rooms filled with teaching stuff.  A couple months ago I was going through my stuff and found these unusual-size big books that are the best treasures!  They're the "Pat the Cat and Friends" series by Colin and Jacqui Hawkins, published by DK.  They're not available new anymore, but you can get them used on Amazon and from other sources.  They're really great for teaching rhyming!  I like them so much because they tell little stories about characters in whatever particular word family you're learning about.  These books led me to thinking more about word families and how I could help my kids learn certain patterns.  I decided to make Word Family Half-Size Guided Reading Books where the kids could color, write sentences, and highlight or circle the rhyming words.  Check them out if you want on TPT!

I really love it when people leave me messages, so feel free to comment about rhyming or  current projects that you're working on.